Scaling up deforestation-free and circular supply chains of bio-pellets and efficient stoves for sustainable cooking by involving smallholder farmers and women's initiatives in Madagascar
Contact person: Julian Spratte
Duration: November 2024 – August 2026
Funding authority: Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt DBU
Partner: Association des Jeunes pour la Promotion de l'Energie Renouvelable et pour la Conservation de la Biodiversité (AJPER)
Summary:
The project takes a holistic view on the poor supply situation of Madagascar's rural population. To improve this, the massive deforestation and eroded soils of smallholder farmers as well as the illness and premature death of women and children due to inefficient and non-clean cooking methods using wood or charcoal are addressed.
Additionally, existing and to-be-established women's initiatives are empowered to teach women in general about the use of efficient stoves as well as male and female smallholder farmers about sustainable field management to increase yields.
This is based on a currently implemented deforestation-free and circular supply chain, which regionally involves the entire rural population as well as local authorities. In an existing energy self-sufficient production demonstration facility for three villages near Sakaraha, which serves approximately 100 households, biopellets are produced from biomass, such as miscanthus grass or peanut shells. Carbonisation of these pellets in energy-efficient pyrolysis stoves results in low-emissions. As an additional benefit of pyrolysis, the resulting plant coal can be spread on the eroded soils as fertiliser "Terra Preta" after the addition of biowaste.
So far, the plant has demonstrated its functional principle, the proper plant and component design, and the ability to produce biopellets from miscanthus grass and peanut shells if the moisture content is properly regulated.
As a first step, the project will focus on the optimization of an existing grass and biopellet supply and production chain near Sakaraha in a gender-responsive manner which should also integrate actors of smallholders, especially women. In a second step, this plant will serve as a blueprint for another plant that will be set up in the neighbouring region of Ihorombe.
In this model project, focusing on smallholders, the project partners are bringing together a wide range of innovative technologies and initiatives to strengthen deforestation-free supply chains for clean cooking. Clean cooking is seen as a key driver of SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) success, which will lead to hunger reduction, well-being, gender justice, the use of sustainable energy, and thus forest recovery1.
